


Start Again

by Monkeygirl77



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archangel Brothers, Archangels, Big Brother Lucifer, Big Brother Michael, Big Brother Raphael, Caring Lucifer, Caring Michael, Crying Gabriel, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Fluff, Gabriel-Centric, He doesn't want the Apocalypse, He's their Fledgling, Hurt Gabriel, No Apocalypse, So they cancel it for him, The World is not Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 09:12:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8007499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkeygirl77/pseuds/Monkeygirl77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Gabriel stops the Apocalypse by crying and Michael and Lucifer turn out to be big softies when it counts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Start Again

He had known from the start that he could not kill his brother. It was at the point that he didn't really care what Dean Winchester thought of him, not as he lay there on the floor with his chest throbbing painfully, if the hunter could not kill his own brother why was he supposed to kill his? 

How was that fair? 

Grimacing he choked on his own blood waiting for Death to claim him. 

His chest hurt and it had nothing to do with the blade sticking from it either. He reached up sluggishly to grasp the hilt weakly and yanked it out with a loud hiss. Why was it taking so long for him to die! 

The last couple hours had been for nothing but at least the thought of Death looming over his head was somewhat appreciated. 

His own brother had stabbed him, somewhere there was poetic irony in there but it hurt too much to sit there and try to find it. He had come to try and reason with his brother but there was nothing left to say. 

There was no other way. 

All the roads were closed and his brother was not his brother. 

The brother from his memories no longer existed and the longer he sat there with the stabbing pain from his wound only made the good memories he did have begin to slowly trickle away like a stream of clear water. 

Or blood. 

He's loosing his mind.....again. He can feel it unraveling as his eyes become oddly warm, the threads of every happy he could ever recall with every single one of his brothers all but a disarray of strings scattered about his prone form on that floor soaking in his own blood and flowing away as the warm liquid spread outwards. He had only ever tried to bring his family back and in doing so he lost  _everything_. 

The others around him, the ones that Lucifer had not killed but merely toyed with were starting to come around. Moans and wails filled the air and it was as if every sound that escaped their mouth was set to the frequency that would shatter his heart to pieces again and again and again. 

Lucifer had once been the most beloved angel and it had nothing to do with the way he just naturally radiated beauty. He had once been the most kind most compassionate angel they had ever known. He had been the confidant, the protector, the comforter, the stone in the vast waters of erratic emotions. 

He had been everyone's loving big brother. 

But now...now he was a mere shell. A shadow of everything he once was. 

He tried to ignore the cries of pain as he lay there on the dust-ridden floor, unmoving. Unblinking. It was all he could focus on now, the grace pumping in his ears and the cries he heard from the others. He didn't really know them, not really, and yet he felt like it had been years that he had laid there listening to their cries. 

 _'Just wait for death,'_ he thought as he felt the ever increasing throb in his wound begin to fade away replaced by an emptiness that was just so much more painful. 

He'd embrace it when it came. 

The only problem he found with that was that it never did come. Nope. Life and Dad hated him (he thinks that they are the same person which only makes it even worse for him at this point) and as the others slowly but surely disappeared back to their own, his wound began to heal itself slowly but painfully. 

Tendons closed back up and vessels sealed, the muscles began to sew themselves together again and the skin began to stitch itself up. 

Breathing ragged he touched a hand to his chest and sucked in a painful breath.

He would have welcomed Death more so over another day of life. He picked himself up off the floor slowly, looking around for the object that had been meant to end his life but had failed most spectacularly. There was still a tint of his blood on the blade and he looked at it tiredly. 

It was getting to the point that he didn't even care anymore. He had no desire to return to the world outside around him, no desire for justice to sicko's, no desire for continuance, no desire for  _anything_. 

He had been the youngest of four. The baby brother with three devoted doting big brothers. He had never had to know the fear of ever being alone, whenever he called they always came running. They'd play with him in the garden, teach him tricks, take him where ever he wanted to go. 

They had been his family. 

But his family was gone. As good as dead. Raphael was no longer compassionate and calming. Michael was no longer loving and understanding. And Lucifer was no longer protective and  _so so bright_. 

He was a lone wolf now, and he guessed he had been for quite some time now. But this time it was real. He had no family. He had no brothers. Nor a Father. 

He had nothing. 

_And that was the most painful wound he would ever bare._

* * *

They say that depression is like a weight on your shoulders that only gets heavier and heavier until its so heavy that you feel like your being crushed by an invisible anvil. 

It was a weight that Gabriel was learning to bare. 

He had tried to go back to the way he had been but it no longer carried that fun in it that it once had. It was like everything good and pure had been sucked from the world around him and replaced with only things of sadness and despair. 

Sometimes the former Messenger didn't even have the strength to get up and out of bed in the morning. 

Crying had always been a healthy release, Raphael had always told him it was better to let it out then hold it in. But for Gabriel it was a habit now. The blue feeling washed in like an unwanted wave, knocking his sandcastles flat. Then what? Was he supposed to construct them again so they could wash away again and again every morning as they always did? Get that bucket and shovel out and make it all perfect and pretty again? 

He sat. 

No more sandcastles. No more building. 

He sat there and stared out his bedroom window watching the rain drops falling from the sky making it seem that the clouds hurt just as much as he did. 

More rain drops falling from his stormy eyes, no surprise there.

He merely let them fall, not raising a hand to stop them. They splashed down on the worn blanket over his lap in a rain like pattern matching that of the drops falling from the sky and soaked in leaving dark splotches on the blanket. 

There was more where that came from, there always was, what percentage water was he anyway? Did he have any? It was his core, there had to be! 

It seemed as if he couldn't stop crying, and no matter how hard he tried to do so it simply came out harder. 

* * *

Gabriel stood there, sunken eyes staring back at him. The color was gone from his face, his hair flat and greasy, and he was clad in years old pajamas that had not seen a washing machine in many many more hanging off his form as if he were a hanger in the closet. He fell forwards as the shouts filled his mind once more, catching himself on the porcelain sink and bowed his head, shoulders shaking. 

There was a sense of deja vu that swept over him, as the ghosts from his past made themselves known again parading around his mind as they had before his eyes all those eons ago, it was a sneaky reminder of all the times he spent here, struggling to keep going when his entire body seemed to sag with exhaustion and numbed agony.

He could hear their fighting, almost so loud that he swore it was right in front of him. 

Almost see the fists and swords. 

All this time and so many dead and yet they still can't stop their fighting. 

Sucking in a breath, Gabriel heaved himself back up. He was tired, so so tired, and he just wanted it to be over with. 

Why did they still have to do this? 

What end was there that everyone was satisfied? 

* * *

Silence rang over the field. 

All eyes directed at the Archangel to arrive last. 

Gabriel stood in his too big pajamas, face red as tears burned new paths down his cheeks. 

Sam and Dean were staring at him in amazement, having known him having been stabbed by his big brother in that hotel, and yet here he was standing before them all shaking with repressed sobs. 

Michael and Lucifer stared at him without moving a muscle, never before had they seen their little brother look so worn out. It was almost scary. 

He just stood there as tears fell from his eyes. There was a rawness to it, like the pain was still an open wound. He would huddle in on himself as his whole body shook. The sobs were stifled at first as he attempted to hide his grief, then overcome by the wave of his emotions he would break down entirely, all his defenses washed away in those salty tears raining from his stormy golden hazel eyes. 

When they looked upon his face he was the picture of grief, loss, and devastation. 

It was the face of one who had suffered before and didn't know if he could do it again. 

The two elder Archangel's had never seen their brother like that before, so deflated. His skinny shoulders shook, his hands hanging limply low at his sides, making no attempt to hide or conceal or even wipe away the tears sliding down his face in currants. Aside from his reddened face he was so grey and pale looking he looked almost sick. 

They'd seen many cry in their long lives, and a few like this, the transition from a person with hope to one without. 

It was the parent who cried when their child died. 

The spouse at the loss of their other half. 

It was the kind of crying that showed the child underneath, that the hurt has cut like a sharpened knife back through the protective layers acquired in the fine art of deceiving and mask making. 

He was murmuring something to them in enochain that only an angel would understand. 

Begging them to stop. One last time. 

"Please.... _please_..... **please**.....I can't...."

They moved forward as he collapsed in shaking sobs his knees giving out underneath him. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed harshly. Michael knelt in front of him carefully, hands shaking as he reached out cautiously. Lucifer looked over his head at his brother. 

What had they done?

Slowly but surely he pried his hands away from his baby brothers face, taking his face into his own firm but gentle grip thumbs wiping away the tears as they fell. 

Warm hands massaged his shoulders from behind as he was forced to stare ahead at the eldest. 

"Okay...Okay."

Gabriel choked on a sob as he thrust himself forward colliding with his brothers chest heavily. Michael stilled in surprise for a moment before wrapping his arms around his quaking baby brother. Cupping the back of his head with his hand gently. 

Lucifer bent behind him wrapping his own arms around him from the back, lips pressing into the back of his head. 

"Please....stop...stop fighting...please"

They both nodded softly, tightening their hold on the baby brother they had all broken. Raphael was calling to them, his own voice adding to theirs. Begging for forgiveness and calling for an end to his pain. 

"We will...For you baby brother...anything for you....just please stop your crying."

There was a flash of lightning in the cloudless sky, "Let us care for you. Let us help you. Let us  _fix_ you baby brother."

Raphael knelt on his left, Lucifer taking his right. Michael was still in front of him holding him steady. Gabriel stared at him for a long time not knowing what to do. Not knowing what to think. 

"Let us do it for you little brother and let yourself finally  _rest_."

He took a longer moment, tears still clouding his eyes, surrounded by his older brothers before nodding his head. He was just so tired, so done, he had nothing left to give and therefore nothing left to lose. He nodded and sucked in a breath as Michael released his hold and and other two brothers pulled him into their sturdy embraces. 

"There will be no apocalypse, we have done much but this..You tried to save us baby brother and in doing so lost everything. But you will get it back, everything, you are our fledgling and we will make it up to you."

The other two nodded in agreement to their eldest. Raphael rubbed a knuckle over his cheek. 

"We will take care of you, heal you and your grace."

Lucifer brushed his thumb over the side of his neck, "Get some warm food into you and a nice warm bath."

"And then we will get you the rest you deserve, you need it, and we will make sure you get it."

Dean threw his hands up in the air and made an exclamation of the vulgar kind. He attracted the attention of the three Archangels as Gabriel burrowed deeper into his elder brother's chest. 

"So its over? Just like that! After all the shit you put us through, you're done because he asked you to be?"

Michael nodded at Lucifer was he removed his baby brother from his chest softly, turning him into the blonde archangel instead. Nodding at Dean's question. 

"We were selfish Dean, its true when they say that you never know what you had until its gone, we have failed the one being we promised to always look after. Gabriel is our baby brother, there is little we won't do for him."

_Un-be-freaking-lieveable!_

The apocalypse was being averted because Gabriel had asked for it to be and because he lost his shit.

"Mind your language Monkey, there is a young one present."

Michael tsk'd his brother as he turned back to face his brothers. It was time to get the youngest home, back to where he belonged. 

Gabriel smiled wetly into his brothers breast, nuzzling in closer as hands rubbed at his back and shoulders. 

Sometimes it was still good being the baby. 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Basically they all returned to Heaven and ended up cuddled together around their younger brother on his bed while he sleeps for the first time in forever.


End file.
